Long-term expectations

My ex boyfriend used to warn me that I expected too much. That you can’t have the perfect romance every day for the rest of your lives – but I couldn’t accept that.

Why couldn’t we do things that were driven by love and romance each and every day? Who says it has to fizzle out and become a once-a-year-on-our-anniversary occurrence?

But it turns out (wouldn’t you know it) that he was kind of right. What I wanted, was not a sweet gesture or a subtle yet thought-out expression of love, but a movie-style (and movie-sized) grand gesture. Spontaneous flowers, surprising gifts, love letters, trips away etc. I was completely and utterly under the rom-com spell – and I thought it was normal to want for those things, on the regular.

What I’ve realised is that while I know my own expectations at 20 years of age were extreme, they were also valid in my choosing of a long-term partner. Put it this way…

If you marry a boy, fall in love with him and agree to spend the rest of your life with him – you’re putting your eggs in one basket and hoping to god that that basket hold up his end of the deal.

What do I mean by that? Well in order to maintain a healthy, loving relationship (free of wandering eyes – and hands for that matter), you need to ensure that both parties are willing to keep the flame lit – and their partners needs taken care of. Within reason.

That means that intimacy shouldn’t just fly out the window once you hit the 10 year mark. Ladies, I’m looking at you. We are all entitled to feel wanted and be touched. I’m not saying that if you don’t feel like getting freaky on a Friday night that your partner has the right to go and get it elsewhere – I’m simply stating that intimacy comes hand-in-hand with marriage and commitment, and I don’t believe that that should simply be lost after a certain point.

By the same token, women go into a long-term commitment hoping that their partner won’t just stop being the romantic, caring and fun man he was when they met. Men are also expected to hold up their end of the bargain and ensure that their partner is looked after as best they can be, too.

Getting married can be a gamble – you have to have faith that the person you want to waltz down the aisle with has the ability to make you happy for the rest of your lives. It’s a big commitment, but it’s the breakdown of these long-term expectations that cause a rift in relationships the most.

Women feel unloved due to a lack of romance and even intimacy as they venture further into their married years – and likewise men can feel abandoned due to lack of love and intimacy – especially after the kiddies come along.

So what do we do about this? Ladies, take the lead and make it clear to your loved one that while big love-filled gestures sure are neat, all you need is just for him to want to do romantic things – just small things like a love-filled text, or pulling out your seat for you and in return you will love and cherish him – and not hold back on the ‘whoopy’ either.

NQC x

What do you think? Should couples be expected to hold up their end of the deal in order for it to work long-term?